


Wish you were here

by Ace_pergers_Syndrome



Category: The Penumbra Podcast
Genre: Christmas, Kind of angsty, M/M, Season 1 Spoilers, junopeter, jupeter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-26
Updated: 2016-12-26
Packaged: 2018-09-12 08:57:50
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,625
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9065020
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ace_pergers_Syndrome/pseuds/Ace_pergers_Syndrome
Summary: It's Christmastime in Hyperion City, and predictably our favourite Martian detective has some trouble getting into the spirit





	

**Author's Note:**

> This is my gift to gravityuniversevale for the Penumbra Secret Santa Exchange. Sorry it's being posted on boxing day instead of Christmas, but I hope you had a great and and that you have an amazing 2017! Happy holidays!
> 
> WARNING: THIS WORK CONTAINS MAJOR SPOILERS FOR THE END OF SEASON 1

Juno Steel wasn't really known for his Christmas spirit. Sure, his halls had been decked better than he had been on his last case, but this was entirely the fault of a certain overly cheery secretary with boundary issues.

 

“Rita!” He snapped, yanking getting of tinsel off the edge of his desk “I told you to keep he fanfare outta my office!!”

 

“But Booss” she whined, “it's so drab in there! And Doctor Oscar off the box says spending the holidays in a dull room can send you way off the deep end! In fact I had a cousin - well he wasn't really a cousin, but his dad and my parent were really close as kids and I always called him uncle Marv so it makes sense to call him cousin even though we haven't really talked much since he went off to college to study engineering cause he always wanted to work makin those travellers haul long distance between planets - I guess he always liked the idea of travelling and it's a shame about that bad trip he had but I always told him that if hefty out there again-”

 

“OKAY” Juno shouted, cutting her off “okay just- okay” he slammed the door closed, rubbing his right temple with the tips of his fingers. He just didn't have the spoons to deal with Rotas noise today, not when his office was filled with more colours than his brain knew how to process. 

 

Of course he'd been running low on spoons a lot lately, even for him. Maybe it was something to do with this season. Or maybe it was something to losing his eye and sharpshooting talent. Or maybe it was-

 

“Mister Steel!” Rotas voice came grating through his thoughts like sandpaper across his brain. “There's a client on line one!!”

 

“Alright! Alright” Juno crossed over to his desk to pick up the phone-

 

Only to find that it too had been tangled up in harshly bright tinsel. “Goddammit Rita” he growled, trying to yank the tinsel away from the phone. But whatever he did only seemed to make even more mess, and he eventually threw the phone down in frustration. That was it, that was his limit for the day. He grabbed his coat off its racks and threw open his door; what he needed right now was a dark apartment room and something to dull his senses. 

 

“Hey Boss, where ya goin?” Rita called as he stormed past her desk. 

 

“Home,” he barked in response. 

 

“What about that client?”

 

“Tell ‘em to call back tomorrow, we’re closed for today”

 

“But Boss-” The door was closed behind him before he could get another word out. 

 

There wasn’t any snow on Mars. The only atmosphere was what the colonists had brought with them, sealed up in this protective bubble they all lived under, so white Christmases were pretty much out. Because of this Juno had had no personaly experience with the stuff, but he definitely felt like his mood could use some cold, wet slush soaking through his shoes as he made his way back to his apartment. Hell, if was real lucky maybe he could have caught pneumonia or something. 

 

Juno’s comm beeped. No doubt it was Rita, calling to find out what was going on. He considered turning it off, but he figured there was a pretty decent chance of her breaking into his home security system later if he didn’t talk to her now. He made sure the volume was set to a level he could tolerate and picked up the call. 

 

“Boss, what are ya doin leavin all of a sudden like that? Is there another case?” 

 

“No Rita, I’m just not feeling well. I’m gonna put my feet up the rest of the day.” 

 

“Are you sure?” Rita said suspiciously. Juno didn’t blame her; he wasn’t exactly known for taking sick days. Normally he couldn’t think of anything worse than spending hours in his hours staring uselessly at the walls, but right now he needed the lack of stimulus. 

 

“Yeah, I’m sure. Just pack up the office and head home Rita, I’ll see you tomorrow.” 

 

“Well, if you’re sure. It’s about time you took a day off anyway, you’re starting to look like those zombies in that film I saw one time with the prince-”

 

“Okay, Rita see you later.” Juno interrupted before she could get going. He was about to hang out the comm when Rita shouted:

 

“WAIT BOSS” He winced at the shrillness of it. Someday all that shrieking was going to send him deaf. It would probably be an improvement. 

 

“What, Rita?” 

 

“Are you coming over to my house for Christmas?” Juno stiffened at the question “I invited all our friends-” her friends “-and some of our clients who didn’t have any other plans and and there’s gonna be games and food and music and-”

 

“No” Juno told her flatly. 

 

“But Boooooss, it’s Christmas! You can’t just spend the whole day cooped up in that dingy little office, ya just  _ can’t _ . Christmas is a day to spend with family, and-”

 

“ _ Goddammit Rita, I said NO”  _ Juno can’t remember there ever being silence in the comms between us. At least not one as chilly as this. 

 

“Okay Boss,” Rita said quietly after a minute “I’ll see you tomorrow.” 

 

Juno made his way home knee deep in thought. Family. He’d never put much stock in family, or even friends for that matter. It seemed like any time he let himself get close to someone it ended up biting him in the ass. People left, people lied, people died. Though he was one to talk, he guessed, after what he did to-  

 

Goddammit, he really didn’t want to think about Peter Nureyev. But these days it seemed like the only thing he could think about. Where would he be right now if he hadn’t left? If he’d just stayed in the hotel room and watched Nureyev wake up? Somewhere with snow, probably. It seemed like the kind of thing Nureyev would insist on; the man was a romantic after all. 

 

Juno took his eyes off the floor and lifted the to the sky. It was daytime, but Juno ignored that and pictured he was seeing a sky full of stars. Which one was Nureyev orbiting right now? Had he spared much thought for that hard-headed detective since they’d parted? Juno couldn’t imagine he’d bother. He’d said himself that he’d never return to Mars if Juno decided to stay. Why would he waste his time worrying about one little man on one little planet when he had a life of adventure and intrigue to lead? Hell, he was probably spending his Christmas in a beautiful hotel somewhere, with an equally beautiful man. But that train of thought was just too painful to follow, so instead Juno pushed the whole thing out of his head. 

 

No. Juno wasn’t thinking about spending Christmas with family. He was going to spend Christmas exactly where he deserved to be, holed up in his apartment with enough liquor to erase the entire day from existence. Speaking of which- 

 

Juno finally reached his apartment building and made his way to his own door. He was planning to drink until he couldn’t think anymore and then sleep the rest of the day away. But when he pushed open the door, he groaned at what he saw. There was an small Christmas tree in the middle of his coffee table. Goddammit Rita, his office was one thing but his house? 

 

He was halfway to taking his comm out so he could give her an earful when he stopped suddenly. If Rita had put this tree up, then where was the rest of the decorations? And why was it small enough to fit on the coffee table and not some hulking beast taking up half his apartment? And why was it so… tolerable? 

 

The the tree didn’t have any bright or harsh colours on it- it didn’t even have lights. Just some tinsel in deep shades of red and green and some small and delicate looking decorations. Nothing about the tree felt like it was attacking Juno’s senses, so it couldn’t have been a Rita job. So where had it come from? He took a step toward it for a closer look. He realised now that all the ornaments were stars and planets, kind of made the tree look like a galax-

 

Juno froze. This close to the tree he could smell it- a cologne that smelt like the spices of some far away world. He couldn’t bring himself to believe it, but there was simply no mistaking that scent. It was then he saw the postcard that was propped up against the bottom of the tree. He picked it up numbly and looked at the front. It was a picture of another planet - he thought it might be something in the Septa system, but he wasn’t sure - with something written across the bottom. It read simply: “Wish you were here” 

 

Juno’s throat tightened. He was feeling a million things right then; sadness and joy and longing and a whole lot of others he couldn’t put a name to. He spent quite a few long minutes staring at that postcard, wondering how a little piece of card could carry so much weight. He imagined he cold spend several hours dissecting the thing, but he wasn’t going to. 

 

Instead he reached into his pocket for his comm again. Juno didn’t put a lot of stock in family, but maybe, just maybe, he could find a way to spend the holiday with someone he cared about with someone that he cared about.

 

“Hey Rita. You got any plans for boxing day?” 


End file.
